GMAT Preparation
Graduate Management Admission Test. The GMAT is requisite for admission to business school. This computerized test is offered year-round, but only in the last 3 weeks of every calendar month. It tests students on verbal skills, quantitative skills (math) and analytical writing skills
About the Graduate Management Aptitude Test (GMAT)
The GMAT is only accessible as a computer adaptive test (CAT) that adapts to your presentation as you take the test. The test is no longer available as a paper and pencil exam. The GMAT Test is a multiple-choice test that most business schools use for admission into their graduate programs.
The Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT) consists of three main parts, the Analytical Writing Assessment, Quantitative section, and Verbal section.
WHAT DOES THE GMAT TEST DETERMINE?
The GMAT is an ability test. Like all ability tests, it must decide a medium in which to measure academic ability. The GMAT has chosen math, English, and logic.
The question is–does it measure skill for business school? The GMAT’s ability to predict presentation in school is as poor as the SAT’s. This is to be predictable since the tests are written by the same company (ETS) and the problems are quite similar (though the formats are different). However, the GMAT also includes two types of questions–Arguments and Data Sufficiency–that the SAT does not. Many students struggle with these questions because they are unlike any material they have studied in school. However, the argument and data adequacy questions are not inherently hard, and with enough study you can raise your presentation on these questions appreciably.
No test can measure all aspects of intelligence. Thus any admission test, no matter how well written, is inherently inadequate. Nevertheless, some form of admission testing is necessary. It would be unfair to base acceptance to business school solely on grades; they can be deceptive. For example, would it be fair to admit a student with an A average earned in easy classes over a student with a B average earned in difficult classes? A school’s standing is too broad a measure to use as admission criteria: many students seek out easy classes and generous instructors, in hopes of inflating their GPA. Furthermore, a system that would monitor the academic standards of every class would be cost high-priced and hot. So until a better system is proposed, the admittance test is here to stay.
FORMAT OF THE GMAT (CAT) TEST
| Section | Questions & Description | Time |
| Writing Section | Analysis of Issue Essay | 30 minutes |
| Writing Section | Analysis of Argument Essay | 30 minutes |
| Math Section | 37 Questions | 75 minutes |
| Verbal Section | 41 Questions | 75 minutes |
The GMAT is a three-and-one-half hour computer adaptive test (CAT). There are four sections in the test.
The writing sections always begin the test. You will type your essay on the computer, by a very basic word processor.
Each question must be answered before you can go to the next question. Further, you cannot return to a question once you go to the next question.
The GMAT is a standardized test. Each time it is offered, the test has, as close as possible, the same level of difficulty as every previous test. Maintaining this consistency is very difficult–hence the new questions (questions that are not scored). The competence of each question must be assessed before it can be used on the GMAT. A problem that one person finds easy another person may find hard, and vice versa. The experimental questions measure the relative complexity of possible questions; if responses to a question do not carry out to strict rider, the question is discarded.
About one quarter of the questions is experimental. The untried questions can be standard math, data sufficiency, reading comprehension, arguments, or sentence alteration. You won’t know which questions are experimental.
Because the “bugs” have not been worked out of the experimental questions–or, to put it more as the crow flies, because you are being used as a guinea pig to work out the “bugs”–these unscored questions are often more hard and puzzling than the scored questions.
This brings up an ethical issue: How many students have run into experimental questions early in the test and have been confused and discouraged by them? Crestfallen by having done badly on a few experimental questions, they lose self-confidence and perform below their ability on the other parts of the test. Some testing companies are flattering more progressive in this regard plus are administer new questions as separate practice tests. Unfortunately, ETS has yet to see the light.
Knowing that the untried questions can be unduly difficult, if you do poorly on a particular question you can take some solace in the hope that it may have been experimental. In other words, do not allow a few hard questions to discourage your presentation on the rest of the test.
THE CAT AND THE PAPER & PENCIL TEST
The computerized GMAT uses the same type of questions as did the Paper & Pencil Test. The only thing that has distorted is medium, that is, the way the questions are presented.
There are benefits and disadvantages to the CAT. Probably the biggest advantages are that you can take the CAT just about any time and you can take it in a small room with just a few other people–instead of in a large auditorium with hundreds of other stressed people. One the other hand, you cannot return to previous questions, it is easier to misread a computer screen than it is to misread printed material, and it can be distracting looking back and forth from the computer screen to your scratch paper.
SCORING THE GMAT TEST
The two main parts of the test are scored separately. You will receive a verbal score (0 to 60) and a math score (0 to 60). You will also receive a total score (200 to 800), and a writing score (0 to 6). The average total score is 500.
In adding up, you will be assigned a percentile ranking, which gives the percentage of students with scores below yours.
